In The End
by iRamble
Summary: All good things come to an end, even the epic journey that has been the Winchesters' lives. Character spoiler for Death, for Season 12, ep. 9 & Season 13, ep. 5;


**SPOILERS** : Character spoiler for Death: Season 12 Episode 9 ' _First Blood_ ' & Season 13 Episode 5 ' _Advanced Thanatology_ '

 **DEDICATIONS** : My Beta was brutal with this one, and I deleted about 2000 words. But…. you were right, in the end. You were right. Thank you.

 **Disclaimer** : All characters appearing in Supernatural are copyright Kripke/CW/WB etc. No infringement of these copyrights is intended. This fanfic is my original work of fiction based on those characters/that universe.

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 **In The End**

Their death was inevitable, in the end. Despite all the odds, or perhaps in spite of them, it didn't matter, when all was said and done. Their lives, their deaths, all the moments lived and died and survived in between, like every other great thing, it all wound down to that one final point; an inescapable, inevitable conclusion.

All things came to an end.

And it had been Sam there at the end of it, after all the dust from all their battles had settled across heaven and hell and earth, who made the choice. Though even then he'd known, the words unspoken, in that preternatural way that only he and his brother had ever known about things that passed between them, that Dean had felt it too; their time of dying.

They were old.

Older on the inside than on the out, but whichever side you looked at now, they were old. And tired. There was still fight left, in both of them, and perhaps the fight would never leave, but their minds were slowly decaying, losing threads of thought, so it was better this way; to choose while they had a choice, than to lose that choice completely. And the years had left their marks on them, inside and out, but it was oh so much more than just a lifetimes worth wasn't it? The battle scars were worn and weathered, the hair turned silver and thinned, the sight fading and the knuckles swollen, fingers gnarled and twisted and joints pained with arthritis, but it all went so much deeper than that. And even that acknowledgement didn't really matter now; all the realities and hell and purgatory and every other realm in between where time had run differently for them, all counting for so many years, so many lifetimes, and in the end, the weight of it all didn't matter anymore, in the face of that simple choice.

On that day, when Sam had felt it was time, when he'd looked at Dean and had almost asked, Dean had simply smiled, somehow knowing what Sam was thinking, the wrinkles deepening even more as they crinkled with his smile, the eyes still holding that boyish glimmer despite it all, and he'd simply nodded. Okay Sam. Yeah.

If he'd summoned her out loud, he didn't know it, but Death came when he'd known she would, and neither Winchester was surprised.

Even Billie looked older now. A lock of silver curls set adrift in a sea of black, as if a ray of moonlight were spiralling through the darkness, and a wrinkle or two that had never been before, now caressing the rich velvety smooth skin with creases as fine as fractured porcelain. But God only knew, or maybe even he didn't, how old Death truly was.

"Hi Dean, Sam."

"Hey gorgeous." And Sam didn't even have to look to know that flirtatious expression on his brother's face. Hell, after all these years, he could hear it in his voice. And in his own way, hadn't Dean always flirted with death a little.

Billie's smile deepened at hearing it; the cheek of it, the truth of it, at the downright gall of it that only Dean in perhaps all of creation could ever really pull off and get away with, and the warmth spread across her face. There weren't many people who could make Death smile like that.

There had been a time when she'd hated them, maybe Dean more so than Sam, but the difference would have been negligible, mere semantics in the grand scheme of things. Then the sharp, jagged edges of that hatred had dulled to tolerance, then begrudging respect, till at some point through the years, the decades, one perhaps even Billie wouldn't be able to pin down exactly, she had found herself on the other side of that line, the one that delineated the 'them' from the 'me'. And when faced with Armageddon, when she'd looked around, she'd found a Winchester flanking on either side, facing it down with her and not flinching an inch, and she'd known then who her true allies were, her comrades.

Her friends.

"I am going to miss you." And the current pushing that smile into the world swirled on a bittersweet eddy of sadness. "Both of you."

"So come down to hell and see us when we get there." Dean urged, only half joking. "Would be a pleasant distraction… You always are."

"Oh come on now Dean. You know you boys've had the penthouse suite reserved and waiting for you on the upper side for a while now. Even you Sam, Dean squared it all years ago, you both get to share the pad. Or didn't you know?"

Did he know? Maybe he did. He couldn't remember. He wasn't surprised. He _was_ relieved.

"Besides Dean," And Sam heard the smile murmuring in her voice, the subtle purr of revelry. "You should know by now I don't go down."

He could hear Dean on the verge of responding, probably matching the playfulness but not really trying for the class, but a coughing fit, one of the many things that they both contended with nowadays, along with the aching bones and creaking joints, stole his retort from him and it was all lost.

Sam had taken care of Dean more and more lately towards the end, although as always, they took care of each other in truth. But still, throughout their lives, Dean had fought harder and longer and fiercer than anyone else Sam had ever known, had taken the hits and had kept on going, and he paid the price for it now. Like a prize fighter but oh so much worse. So Sam found himself there some days, talking his brother down from a morphed delusion of hellish memories, or forcing his brother to take medication that could loosen or straighten the swollen joints, or even simply just being the one who forced himself to get up, to stand and move to go make them a meal. Because on some days, it was hard to move, some days none of the aches ever stopped. But Sam understood that on those days, if his own body and bones complained, then it only meant it must be ten times worse for Dean.

It held a kind of symmetry really, the way it had all turned out after all; for all the years at the start of their lives when Dean had cared for his baby brother, it seemed now as they approached the end of it, it was Sam who cared for Dean.

He was still a crotchety old jerk at times, to which Dean would remind him he was still a balding bitch, and the two would share a grin.

Somethings never changed.

The pain had grown over the years, but they reminded each other that, after so many trips to Hell, it really wasn't so bad. Pain medication was the only thing that helped a little, and even then it only went so far. By now their bodies had accrued so many wardings and sigils and spells, carved over the years even deeper than bone, some even etched directly into their souls, that even angel or witch or demi-god magic didn't really work on them anymore.

But Billie reached out a hand regardless, fingers gently caressing Dean's cheek and the coughing abated instantly.

"Y'couldn't've done that… a year ago?" Dean drawled, voice rasping breathlessly as he feigned some kind of empty resentment. But he knew the answer as well as she did and Billie didn't need to say it; a glancing touch from Death was not a thing to be taken lightly. She hadn't fixed the pain, not really. She'd simply killed the nerves. The beginning of the end.

They lapsed into an easy conversation, the back and forth as it always was between those two, verging on promises of something more but never truly crossing that line, and Sam allowed himself to close his eyes, to be lulled by the soft, easy tones, the deep gentle murmur of their laughter.

Slowly he became aware that something had changed around them, and when he opened his eyes he was sat in Dean's Baby. He didn't know when she'd brought them here but he realised it was where he'd wanted to be all along. Next to him, Dean chuckled.

"Oh Billie, you know me so well. If only I were two hundred years older."

"Try adding a few millennia…."

Dean smiled, sighed. Closed his eyes and sighed again, tired, weary, but content in a way that seemed to spread out from his soul. "As much as I love ya Billie, I think I'll pass."

"Hmm." Was all she said, remembering all the times he'd bargained his life away, and then cheated her out of taking it. And this time, now, finally, they were so willing and she knew there would be no resistance, yet she felt nothing like a victor.

Over the years she'd read their tale down to last page, and when they had outlived all the endings that could have been there had been a single blank leaf and she had wondered at that. But she understood it now; there was no choice but to leave it in their hands to choose, and if she could have, perhaps she would have asked them to stay. But they'd stayed long enough, not just for each other but for the whole world, for heaven and even for hell, so no one left had any right to ask anything of them anymore.

She turned her eyes to Sam instead, sensing he was the one who might still have conditions, smile still there on her lips, but sombre now somehow.

 _How you wanna play this Sam?_

And he realised she hadn't said it out loud, that her voice had simply blossomed in his head.

 _Take him first_ he thought. And he was sure she felt every emotion, every panicked fear that raced through him at the thought of Dean being left there with Sam's dead body next to him. After all those years, all that time, after everything, he knew there were somethings that would never change. Even when all the light seemed gone, the flames guttering and petered out, seemingly extinguished forever, he knew knowledge of his death would be the _one_ spark that would rekindle it all in Dean, reignite his fire and will to fight again.

Somethings would never change.

 _Done_ she smiled.

Dean breathed deeply, his chest rising and falling in a steady, slow rhythm, causing them both to rock back and forth gently, and Sam allowed himself to drift, carried and lulled by the movement as his eyes closed for the last time.

 _So this is the end of the road_. Sam thought.

"Only the end of the road so far." Dean said, his voice sounding youthful again somehow, and Sam didn't bother to wonder how his brother had even heard him.

 _I never said thank you._ He thought instead.

 _Yeah you did._ Dean thought back. _But you never needed to Sammy._

The memories swept over them then. Hundreds. Thousands. They didn't know how many, beginnings and endings all joining and tumbling together. Things they'd forgotten, things they'd missed. All the fragments scattered across all their lives, filled with all the people they had ever loved and who had cherished and loved and valued them in return.

But it was more than simple remembrance, because although they shared it all again like they always had, this time around all knowledge of the things they had ever lost, of all the hurt, the pain, resentment and anger and twisted cruel fate, it was all stripped away and forgotten till it there was just the essence of those perfect memories, crystallised and distilled down to the best of their simple truth. No guilt. No regrets. No deaths. No losses. Just two brothers on a road trip, driving under the stars, their whole lives ahead of them, no failures to ever haunt them, and with knowledge, absolute, that it had all been worth it in the end.

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 _Fin._

 _Thank you for reading._


End file.
